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B47h0ry'5 CuR53 writes "XBMC is getting ported to Linux. A few developers of Team-XBMC have begun the porting of XBMC to Linux using OpenGL and the SDL toolkit. In this effort, they are recruiting developers. XBMC is, by far, one of the finest projects to come out of the open source community; and to think it is homebrew. XBMC is a massive project, with the current SVN branch weighing about 350M before compilation. Porting it will be a big effort and any hackers willing to contribute should check out the Linux port project."

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries. Since it wasn't mentioned, XBMC is the Xbox Media Center, an open source media center project to play images and videos of various formats and from various sources, such as streaming from your PC or even the Internet, on your Xbox 360. It will let you use your Xbox 360 kind of like a beefed-up and free Apple TV [apple.com]

Sounds pretty cool, but it does require that you mod your Xbox 360, and Microsoft has been banning modded Xboxes [slashdot.org] from their Xbox Live service. I'm not saying do it or don't do it, just that before you get too excited and start downloading stuff, you ought to know that as part of your decision.

Because, you know, allowing people to improve your product for free by adding a ton of useful functionality, customizing the thing they've laid out a not-insignificant amount of hard-earned cash for to better suit their needs must be stopped at all costs. After all, it might cost you a few bucks in not selling movies that people already own to them again.

From what I've heard part of the reason they're working on a Linux port is so that they can have this fine software running on the Xbox 360 (seeing as it's possible to run Linux on a limited number of Xbox 360 consoles) as well as the PS3 which can run Linux out of the box.

I've been using XBMC at home for years now and it really is fantastic and gets frequent and useful updates. Here's hoping that a Linux port will not only provide us with LEGAL binaries (being homebrew on the Xbox 1 means that the binaries are technically illegal) but support for some video capture devices and DVR/PVR functionality... which IMO was the only major feature missing from XBMC as it wasn't possible using the Xbox 1's too slow for video v1.1 USB ports.

yeah I did notice that actually. You can extend that standards compliance to bluetooth devices like headsets, as well as flash media, wi-fi, etc.

I really like that direction and the PS3 makes a great media device for those reason IMO. I'd own one except I don't need a media device and there's nothing on the console yet that excites me as a game machine.

The number of people looking for a media device and game machine wrapped into one at a price to reflect that I would suspect is much smaller then the number of people looking for just a media device or just a game machine and not wanting to pay for things they don't need.

As to the OpenGL aspect, drivers are not available for alternative OS's at this time (like Linux) which can be installed on the hardware, but USB works fine as does the hard drive (I'm running Ubuntu on my PS3, thank-you very much).Writing software that runs from within Sony's XMB is another story; that requires a license (as with all game systems) but those who have such a license don't have to look up some strange new specification for their software at an API level -- that's what standards are for.

From what I've heard part of the reason they're working on a Linux port is so that they can have this fine software running on the Xbox 360 (seeing as it's possible to run Linux on a limited number of Xbox 360 consoles) as well as the PS3 which can run Linux out of the box.

Another possible motivation is departing from using the XDK. As you may or may not know the XDK (Xbox Development Kit) is not publicly available [xboxmediacenter.com] and thus the XBMC team does not distribute binaries, but only source code. Then various groups with illicit copies of the XDK compile this code into the XBMC that we know and love. You have to know where to go to get it, et cetera. In addition, to even run it you either need it to either be signed, which is only done by Microsoft, or to have a hacked Xbox. In order to run unsigned Xbox (XDK) programs on the Xbox, you need a hacked BIOS. And these are by definition modified copies of the original BIOS, which are in turn illegal to distribute, and possibly to create or possess (depending on how valid the Xbox EULA is.) Work proceeds on an Open XDK replacement [openxdk.org], but it's not up to most tasks yet.

However, it is possible to run Linux [xbox-linux.org] on the Xbox using an alternative BIOS known as Cromwell [xbox-linux.org]. This is an entirely Free/free solution, and is completely legal. You can flash it to the system in the same way as you would any other BIOS, so if you have an early Xbox you can do the internal TSOP reflash [xbox-linux.org] and you don't even need a modchip.

(Pardon my linkage; might as well make some links for posterity, and they support my argument):)

Anyway, HTPC, Xbox 360 (and Playstation 3!) compatibility were probably the primary goals. But it also has a dandy side-benefit.

There is however still no legal way to do DVD menus (at least in the USA.)

Excellent analysis of the current situation regarding legality of the code. You left out that the XBOX lacks the processing power to handle 720p quality video (Xvid compressed), even though it is capable of output at that resolution. This among other things which have been accumulating just go to demonstrate that XBMC has outgrown the XBOX making a port desirable to best utilize the effort spent so far in development. A development effort which has been on going since the turn of the century. Waste not,

Some usb 'freeview' dvb cards can do SD tv fine (though not HD) using usb 1.1 . They work by splitting the mpeg transport stream and only sending single channel streams down the usb bus. one such card is the Avermedia AverTV DVB-T USB2.0 (capable of sending either single channel down usb 1.1 OR full transport stream down usb 2.0) - nice little gadget - driver is in vanilla kernel.
I am trying to get a nice minimal xbox 1 distro compiled which will run Mythtv on top of (X)DirectFB (which supports xbox nvidi

I'm a close acquaintance with the maker of the XERC [sickmods.net]. I say acquaintance as I've never met him in person being that we live half way around the world apart. Pablot (who designed the XERC) and SICKDimension (who mass produces/sells them) work with me on both Xbox-Scene.com and Nintendo-Scene.com and I speak with them nearly on a daily basis.

Anyway, I'm fairly familiar with how they work. The XERC (and similar devices) essentially get their power from the PSU's standby line, they have an IR receiver and whe

hmm after posting that I had another thought... I suppose it might be possible to have XBMC send a high frequency signal over the analog audio outputs, high enough that it wouldn't be audible. you could then filter it and feed it into the XERC or similar device. It would be a pretty dirty hack so I'm not sure how reliable this method would be but it's another possibility and much more simple then the alternative I proposed above.

I kind of wish the LinuxMCE, MythTV and XBMC developers could all work together, it would be nice to have LinuxMCE's interface with XBMC features, and MythTV's TVR functionality... imho XBMC and LinuxMCE have nicer interfaces, LinuxMCE seems to have pretty good linux integration, but XBMC has all those nice emulators, and functionality built in nicely... I only wish my nVidia TV capture cards had support under linux...:( Been holding out for an HD solution that will work with subscription though... I don

Actually, I believe XBMC is for the first XBOX. I don't think homebrew is possible on the 360 unless you can somehow get a certain firmware version onto your 360 (without ever having something later that blows the hardware fuses and prevents a downgrade)

In the dorm right now, my xbox is connected to the network running XBMC with a 5inch PSone screen attached to it in the bathroom.

It's used as an over-glorified shower radio right now but at home for the summers (and coming up in my apartment) it gets used connected to the TV. This lets me watch TV shows and other computer video content on a TV from a device that has GREAT video output for a TV (way better than the s-video connection on my laptop).

You can be kicked off live for a modded xbox just like an modded 360, but from what I've read the switch boxes work pretty well, and anyway plenty of people buy them as a cheep media box and never even attempt to hook them up for Live at all.

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries.

What, you mean as a nerd you don't automatically know about every project on every platform everywhere? So you have no idea about the developments made by the TTMH team, or the ramifications of Project Windmill? What about your take on the social issues associated with the QRML?

You don't even follow the news enough to understand a project that only runs on a modified version of an outdated hardware platform and does the same job and dozens of other far more powerful systems and commercial products?!? Turn in you nerd card, sir!

You don't even follow the news enough to understand a project that only runs on a modified version of an outdated hardware platform and does the same job and dozens of other far more powerful systems and commercial products?!?

The modded xbox costs what now, maybe $150? With it (modded) you can play SNES, Genesis, N64 games. Not to mention xbox games. If that wasn't enough now comes XBMC. My roomates and I ALWAYS use XBMC to watch movies from our computers, we just leave the xbox plugged into the network

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries. Since it wasn't mentioned, XBMC is the Xbox Media Center, an open source media center project to play images and videos of various formats and from various sources, such as streaming from your PC or even the Internet, on your Xbox 360. It will let you use your Xbox 360 kind of like a beefed-up and free Apple TV

All it takes to avoid looking like an idiot is to use some common sense and hover over the first word of the summary.

What does it take to avoid looking like a dick? I'm probably asking the wrong person...

Of course hovering over the first link in an article and looking at the url in the bottom of the browser (which could have simply been "http://www.xbmc.com" but still only tells you "xboxmediacenter") is much simpler than reading a one-sentence description in the article. Heck, why even have sentence

All it takes to avoid looking like an idiot is to use some common sense and hover over the first word of the summary.

And all it takes to keep people from having to jump through idiotic non-intuitive hoops that may or may not yield a modicum of an explanation of what the hell you're talking about is to spell out your obscure abbreviation at least once in the summary.

I'm glad that people like you, who blame problems with a user interface on those "idiot" end users, are becoming fewer and fewer. And next

While I agree that this is good practice, and should be followed, Slashdot is theoretically News for Nerds. If you're a nerd, you should either a) already know what XBMC is, b) be able to figure it out without help, or c) both. Those of us who fall into the latter category spend a significant portion of our time on slashdot either laughing or rolling our eyes at those of you who fall into none of these groups.

If you're a nerd, you should either a) already know what XBMC is, b) be able to figure it out without help, or c) both.

a) is extremely arguable. I hate to burst your bubble, but most nerds I know do not own an Xbox, 1 or 360. The ones that do (I own one of each myself) don't keep up with the mod/homebrew scene, they just use them to unwind after their day at the office. (Which is why I had never heard of XBMC, and even mistakenly claimed that it was for the 360.) As such, it's unlikely that XBMC will mean anything to, well, I'm guessing around 99% of the nerds that read Slashdot.

Question 1: what do you think that the role of a "summary" is? Question 2: how does a block of text become a good summary?

Don't get me wrong, if there were two versions of the submission on the firehose, and one explained what XBMC was and one didn't, the one that did would be likely to be the one I voted up. But if there weren't, I wouldn't have voted the one down, but instead up.

For the record, some marks of a good summary (as opposed to "acceptable") include an expansion of every acronym, proper link e

For reference, for the 99% of us out here who have no frickin' clue what something like XBMC might stand for, it would be nice to spell out the whole abbreviation at least once in summaries

I used to tell myself this is a geek site, if I don't know what an acronym stands for I should look it up myself yada yada etc etc. Then I see this [slashdot.org] story yesterday about "altruism," and the submitter bothered to give us a definition of that word (I'm pretty sure it was the submitter; I didn't see the definition in the lin

Hasn't XBMC (And for a brief time XBMP, before they merged) always been GPL (Or atleast some other open source license)? Nobody has stopped anyone from porting it. The only thing that has changed is that the XBMC team are starting to port some bits themselves to encourage more people to develop for XBMC.

the source has always been GPL... the problem is that the tools for building are Microsoft proprietary (i.e. no gcc/g++), and therefore once you've built XBMC from source you're effectively violating MS's rights, and so the binaries are not downloadable except from "interesting" sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC [wikipedia.org]
"Xbox Media Center (XBMC) is an award-winning media player for the original Xbox game-console. XBMC can play music, play videos and display images from the Xbox's DVD drive, its internal hard-drive drive, a local network, USB flash drive, and the internet. It also functions as a replacement dashboard to launch Xbox games off the hard-disk drive. Other functions of XBMC include large metadata databases for music/video-file handling, displaying weather forecasts and TV guides, watching YouTube videos and apple.com movie trailers, listening to SHOUTcast and Podcasts streaming internet radio/video, also XBMC functions as a gaming platform by allowing users to play python-based mini-games and a free online-gaming alternative to Xbox Live. It is important to note that the software requires a modchip, softmod exploit or other means by which to execute on the Xbox as it is a homebrew application. XBMC is free and open source software, the source code is distributed under the GNU General Public License. The XBMC project is not produced or endorsed by Microsoft."

The article then goes on into more feature/function details, it is recommended reading;)

Xbox Media Center is one of the best kept secrets in the programming world. After all, it only runs on the original Xbox, and while there is a healthy modding community that has been hacking them since release, it isn't exactly mainstream. It's been a crying shame that this exceptional media program has been tied to the original Xbox for so long, and I'm thrilled that it's being ported over to Linux and set free for everyone to use.

The killer feature of this program is *not* what it does. It's a very powerful and robust media player, certainly, but the true power comes from the user interface, which is simple, effective, straightforward and very pretty to look at (and fully skinnable). Anyone who has used a TiVo or similar television media interface should have no problems using XBMC. Now that it is no longer tied to the Xbox, it will be possible to create small form factor media center systems running linux and give them a truly excellent user interface.

The interface supports running external programs (in particular, games and game emulators), python scripting to handle writing widgets to interface with popular media sites like YouTube, file management, and streaming from nearly any source. It also works as an FTP/Samba/HTTP server to serve out whatever media is stored on the disk to other sources. There is a web interface for remote management. It'll work with USB joysticks and remote control as well as keyboards. There is a web browser but it's a bit hinky - I'm sure that someone will merge it with Firefox after it is ported.

If you're wondering why anyone would give a damn about the original Xbox or this program, the upshot is this... for $129 you could buy a P3 system (xbox), hack it with software exploits (fairly easily), install a hard disk up to 1TB in side to replace the original, and have a portable media player box that could hold hundreds of hours of content and play it back in 480p/720p/1080i and DTS. The price to do that with any computer was far higher at the time (and frankly still is, especially in setup time). I've been carting mine around for years and have had a great many friends request that I make one for them. I think I've done around thirty of them by now.

I think Microsoft/Sony completely missed the boat by overlooking this application for their gaming consoles. Either they just didn't see it or they don't like this behavior and see it as a liability of some kind. Either way, we won't be needing them much longer. A clever company could probably turn this into a killer set-top app with some business savvy. All it needs is a bit-torrent backend for sharing content with other users and connectivity to media sites, and you've got a TV channel killer on your hands and a new distribution network (if it ever gets big).

Why bother? With the exception of a couple of console emulators, every XBMC application I've tried has had flawless support for Samba file sharing. I'd rather stick that 1TB drive in a desktop PC or network file server, and mount my video/game/music directories so they're accessible to any machine on the network, including the Xbox.

play it back in 480p/720p/1080i

Upscaled to 720p/1080i, it should be noted. The Xbox's CPU isn't quite powerful eno

All of the media center implementation attempts I've seen others make fell flat for me as well. They always came off as a half baked idea that was never properly implemented, and in Microsoft's case, always tied to a windows box somewhere. The teams looking at them didn't see them the way we do. They've failed to understand their customers - a problem XBMC does not have.The reason you'd do the 1TB thing is because it's portable and all you need is a TV to enjoy your entire DVD library (XBMC will play raw IS

The killer feature of this program is *not* what it does. It's a very powerful and robust media player, certainly, but the true power comes from the user interface, which is simple, effective, straightforward and very pretty to look at (and fully skinnable). Anyone who has used a TiVo or similar television media interface should have no problems using XBMC. Now that it is no longer tied to the Xbox, it will be possible to create small form factor media center systems running linux and give them a truly exce

I haven't used MythTV, but XBMC is truly beautiful and the default skin is not only gorgeous but highly functional. Take a look at XBMC. It's really quite impressive. (I wonder if you could run it in an Xbox emulator, for a trial...)

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original posting, but I've used both. In fact, I use XBMC now because I have an xbox hooked up to my TV anyway. If I were to use a linux box as suggested in TFA, I'd just use MythTV.

Actually, you were being deliberately obtuse, which is horribly annoying. I don't think I can be faulted for not understanding the truth...

Regardless, the benefit of XBMC on Linux over MythTV on Linux is supposedly the interface, but again, I haven't used Myth. I have an Xbox, but I don't have a HTPC. And the benefit of XBMC on a faster system as opposed to XBMC on the Xbox is that it could support full-HD video.

Here's a question for ya.Can I make the XBMC in my living room start playing MP3s based on what I type in my bed room?

Every "Media Center" I've ever seen wants me to "Share" the files, walk 50 feet, pick up the remote control, squint at my television to read what songs are there, select them, play them, and walk back to my bedroom. Frankly, it's annoying.

My current hack is a homebrew wsh script on an XP pro box, I dump MP3s over the network, it picks 'em up, plays 'em, and deletes 'em.

If you want network transparency and scripting, why the hell are you using windows? Use the right tool for the job and you'll find that there's no end of solutions. You might find you'd like the Music Player Daemon [musicpd.org] or MythTV [mythtv.org]. Or enable X forwarding and run Amarok across the network. Or just ssh in and use mplayer.

And if you're seriously set on using Windows for this, why not enable file sharing and let the network transfer your MP3s on the fly?

Anyway, to answer your question, you can do this with FTP Si [xboxmediacenter.com]

> If you want network transparency and scripting, why the hell are you using windows?

Windows was there... I have a Windows PC hooked up in the living room so I can play Wolfenstein. Yeah, I know, that's kind of lame. LOL.

Going with a non-Windows solution would mean buying new hardware, though, since there aren't Linux drivers for almost everything on the [free] BookPC I'm using. Which means considering XBox makes sense, too.

MythTV -- not sure what this gets me? I thought it was your basic PVR? I have

I think Microsoft/Sony completely missed the boat by overlooking this application for their gaming consoles. Either they just didn't see it or they don't like this behavior and see it as a liability of some kind.

More likely they just haven't figured out how to monetize it yet. Since Microsoft sold both Xbox's at a loss, and Sony is selling the PS3 at a substantial loss, I doubt either is jumping up and down to find a way to let people use them in a way that won't make them any additional revenue.

I am a happy XBMC user for years now. However, I think XBMC has hit a ceiling of sorts: there are still bugs aplenty, especially around error handling: a small hiccup on your LAN and XBMC may freeze or stop media playing. Canceling out of most network-streaming ops also hangs XBMC... these have been around for years and although they've been getting better, it's not exactly a consumer-friendly experience.Secondly, interfaces are getting complex enough to need their own IDE (yes, I know there's one floatin

Fine you can also get all the old emulators (They're working on a ps1 emu right now but everything prior to that) All Xbox games, several PC ports....

My Xbox also rips DVDs which is nice (Pop it in it copies and encodes overnight.

If it had line in it would be the sickest media centre ever. It's still Big heavy and ugly and needs a physical mod (though there are soft mods I haven't seen anyone who has used one) and doesn't support HD-DVD (gasp) or DVD burning.

It happens. A good foam carrying case for an xbox runs about $25 at Toys-R-Us or similar places. It cuts down on the abuse while in your trunk. I never put anything on there I can't afford to lose.My worst one was formatting my 750GB model as one huge 750GB F drive. The partition table starts looping back on itself at the 256GB mark, so I overwrote everything on the system by copying in new media. I broke the 1TB model up into C/E/F/G at 256GB each and the problem hasn't reappeared. That would be a pain to

I was under the impression that XBMC was basically a modified version of Mplayer. Now I can't believe that they coded their own OS to run on the bare metal and I somehow doubt they were using Windows. So that basically leaves Linux, right?

So they're porting a Linux based Linux media player to Linux?

Would anyone like to correct me or alternatively join me in a severe case of WTF?

yes you are (confused)
Yes, we use mplayer on Xbox1, as one of _several_ CORES for playback. it's not the stock mplayer but a modified version.
XBMC is the gui and all added functions, too many for me to list. You need to have used xbmc to understand what it's about/pike, XBMC Projectmanager

Well, I've got MythTv, gqview, and mplayer and it's several years since I had any trouble playing a media file on my Linux box, so why don't you tell us, since you're here, why I would want something else, let alone download and install 350Ms? What's the point of this xbmc thing outside of the console environment?

As a longtime XBMC user: What XBMC brings to the table is an excellent 15-foot interface, seemless integration with a LARGE number of formats (including SMB shares and many types of streaming media) and a very active skinning / modding community. The fact that it's currently limited to the original xBox hardware is it's only weak point, in my mind. This keeps it from being able to play 720p content very well, simply because the hardware lacks the power.A typical XBMC installation package (which is general

I think the biggest challenge they will face with the linux port is hardware support. The xbox platform allowed them to focus more on the interface than trying to support a ton of different ir controllers / video cards / etc.

That is not a problem, because it is an OS problem, not an application problem. Remember, they're porting it to Linux and SDL, not to some bare hardware. To them, SDL is the driver layer. This is excellent because SDL is available for a number of other platforms, so this is also a firs

I seem to remember them doing a win32 port of XBMC a while back that was less than stellar.

Also, I'm not a coder, but SDL doesn't appear to grant any interface to IR Remotes, which is one of the main reasons I still haven't ditched my xbox in favor of streaming video to my PS3. I still can't believe they didn't put an IR receiver in that thing.

Also, I'm not a coder, but SDL doesn't appear to grant any interface to IR Remotes, which is one of the main reasons I still haven't ditched my xbox in favor of streaming video to my PS3. I still can't believe they didn't put an IR receiver in that thing.

You don't need SDL for that, support for IR is provided by the Linux kernel as well.

Linux also supports all the Xbox hardware (but with poor video support thanks to nVidia - The OpenXDK guys are making some headway though) already, including the IR dongle

WAF or GFAF. (Wife Acceptance Factor and GF Acceptance Factor, respectively).XBMC is idiot proof. They turn it on and it works. I use ccxstream instead of Samba because I have no reason to use Samba on my debian server.

It's hard to explain if you've never seen it in action. If I go over to a friend's house and we want to watch some movies I can ftp them to the hard drive, toss the XBOX in my backpack and go. Almost all TVs on the market have RCA inputs. If I lose my remote I can pull up http://xbox/ [xbox] on my l

I don't have one but have used xbmc at my friends and it is a joy to use. It doesn't just look good, but has a sleek, responsive interface. I do have a myth box myself, and the backend is rock solid, but have found the mythfrontend to be somewhat sluggish and have wanted the responsiveness that xbmc gives.But I am curious as well now, I know it's main player is mplayer, but regarding the gui and everything else, I thought it was all written with a modified version of linux? I guess not, but a better expl

But I am curious as well now, I know it's main player is mplayer, but regarding the gui and everything else, I thought it was all written with a modified version of linux? I guess not, but a better explanation there would be interesting.

No, XBMC runs on top of MS's standard Xbox kernel (well, standard except for being patched to support binaries not signed by Microsoft, and often a few other features such as hard disks larger than 137GB), using MS's standard Xbox libraries for IO, the same as an Xbox game d

Now I can't believe that they coded their own OS to run on the bare metal and I somehow doubt they were using Windows. So that basically leaves Linux, right?

No, it runs on the xbox os. The same one that all the games use. It was coded with the xbox development kit the same as any game. The port to linux requires writing sdl and opengl implementations of all the libraries that microsoft provided in the xbox sdk.

The developers are looking to target AppleTV as the lead platform [avsforum.com] (at least on the low-end). This is great as the beauty of XBMC was that it ran on a console and everyone running it was on the same page hardware-wise. The only downside is lack of optical storage on the ATV and whether or not it can decode 1080p content.

Except that LinuxMCE is broken, doesn't work, and support from the developers is poor.Infact it is un-installable (unless they fixxed it last night, and I have not checked). How many other FOSS project offer 'support' via Skype and YIM? Yes it is a nifty idea, but only if the devs actually log-in to those accounts. IRC remains barren. IRC is ideal because many people get to see/share the info that is posted. The official forums seem to be devoid of any dev interaction, and the bug-report might be falli

I've played with it. XBMC has more stability and a much better interface, and is far easier to set up and get working, and requires far cheaper hardware and a lot less hacking even to get on a modded xbox. XBMC has a much more active community, is more feature rich, and has better support. Frankly, LinuxMCE is for linux weenies - the kind who want to play with a computer. I don't want to play - I want to turn something on, get a killer media center, and then *use it* to watch media without ever worrying abo

Not even close. I could use Zeus to replace Apache. I could use an Intel or a Sun compiler to replace gcc. I can use FreeBSD to not only replace the Linux kernel, but to get a full OS. I can use Opera to replace Firefox.

XBMC is FAR more important than all of these things - it gives me a full media extender that my wife can not only use, but loves for around 90 quid. It brings peace and harmony to my home. It replaced my VCR and DVD recorder.

Different projects with different goals - however, that said, in spirit they are very similar. The television based user interfaces share a lot of the same ideas. I'd rate XBMC as a more user friendly product but Myth is closeer to it than any other working app I've seen. Myth and XBMC would make a good pairing - one for managing, watching, and recording your television shows, the other for connecting you to any other media on any network or server. MythTV would make a good addition to XBMC's front menu wit

The biggest problem with speeds below 600-800 MHz or so is that is you're not likely to be able to stream SD-resolution media very smoothly (forget about HD-resolution). Maybe with a hardware MPEG board or something.

The biggest problem with speeds below 600-800 MHz or so is that is you're not likely to be able to stream SD-resolution media very smoothly (forget about HD-resolution). Maybe with a hardware MPEG board or something.

Yeah, that should be just fine. I recently read that the CPU in a Tivo Series 2 is 50MHz.

XBMC for Linux (once mature enough for eveyone to use) will require that end-users (not developers) have a 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that at least supports Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0 (and featuring 24bpp or 32bpp for 3D hardware-acceleration support, (such retail adapter usually state on the box that they support "DirectX version 9.0c"). The XBMC GUI needs this to run smootly at an acceptable frame-rate). Meaning a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (or later), alternativly a Intel GMA X3000/G965 (or later)

XBMC for Linux (once mature enough for eveyone to use) will require that end-users (not developers) have a 3D GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that at least supports Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0 (and featuring 24bpp or 32bpp for 3D hardware-acceleration support, (such retail adapter usually state on the box that they support "DirectX version 9.0c"). The XBMC GUI needs this to run smootly at an acceptable frame-rate).

I don't buy that; Some themes and effects would possibly require it, or to do it at high r

Hmm, I can't agree here. You talk as if there is a multitude of choices of all in one guis to access your media content on linux. Let's see there's mythtv and freevo (there's one other that's has had some development but the name escapes me). Myth is awesome, but the gui has always felt sluggish to me, whereas xbmc is responsive and fast as one would expect from a gui. And freevo, well I heard they have made some improvements, so I can't say currently, but when I tried it awhile back it felt pretty hac

However I don't think porting it is a good idea, it simply isn't that special, the reason it is good is becasue it runs on the xbox, not anything else

I disagree. In combination with the Xbox remote, XBMC is hands down the best media player I've used on any platform. It has a better UI than TiVo! Thanks to XBMC I was able to retire my CD player and my DVD player. Most of my TV watching is now AVIs streaming off the net.

XBMC is the most reliable video player I have -- it plays pretty much anything, including stuff that Windows Media Player and Quicktime (both on Mac and PC) choke on. Obviously, I could run MPlayer on my PC, but with XBMC I get Mplayer rea

Note! You do not need Visual Studio to develop XBMC for Linux, nor do you need the XDK (Xbox Development Kit), you do not even need Microsoft Windows. Those are only needed when you develop XBMC for Xbox.

If are are competent with C/C++ programming-language then all you need to start with developing XBMC for Linux (to help in the porting project) is a x86-based computer running Linux, (Ubuntu 7.04 is recommended). The software development tool used to develop XBMC under Linux is called Kdevelop, which is

Is that really a problem for XBMC? I would imagine the only really important thing would be DRI support, which AFAIK still isn't there. But I know that there have recently been some successes by the OpenXDK guys on making the graphics hardware do snazzy things, so I hope there's hope:) I would have thought you'd only need the 3D to do the screensavers.

Is it not possible to have a less enhanced skin engine as well? Perhaps y'all would not be implementing it, but would it be too hard to swap for another one? I understand the Xbox might need that kind of manipulation, especially due to its lack of CPU power, but couldn't you do the job with more brute force type of processing where the processor hardware was available but the GPU not?

Very simple. It allows me to store videos on a machine somewhere out of the way, and watch them on my TV, with an absolute minimum of fuss, and a nice interface to boot.I don't have a PVR nor do I don't have a small form factor media PC. Neither do I want any of these things. This is a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle.

The reason having this ported is a good idea is because at the moment it's tied to the Xbox, a platform which is rapidly becoming phased out, and also a platform which is somewhat limited in